Fiona Apple Cancels Tour Because Her Dog Is Dying

Makes announcement in four-page letter

(Newser)
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Fiona Apple has canceled the South American leg of her tour because she needs to be home to take care of her dying 14-year-old dog, People reports. Apple made the announcement in a four-page, handwritten letter that will have anyone who's ever loved an animal tearing up. In it, she describes her pit bull, Janet, as "the most consistent relationship of my adult life ... she's my best friend and my mother and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is." Apple adopted Janet when the singer was 21 and the puppy was four months old; Janet had been used as bait in dogfights until then.

"She was my child," Apple writes, but "as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head." She's had a slow-growing tumor for the past two years, and when Apple got back from the last leg of her tour, she noticed Janet had changed. "She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore," Apple writes. "I just can't leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out." Click to read the heartwrenching letter in full. See a picture of Janet and Fiona here.

This March 14, 2012 file photo shows Fiona Apple performing at the NPR showcase during the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas.
(AP Photo/Jack Plunkett, file)

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